Facebook Spam Conversion Rate Reaches 47 Per Cent

A recent study has determined that spam the conversion rate on social networking platform Facebook is 47 per cent.

According to a report prepared by Sean Sullivan, a security adviser at anti-virus firm F-Secure, nearly half of Facebook users clicked on spam links, which eventually led them to finish a survey, for which the spammers are paid a commission.

Writing on the F-Secure blog, the security expert wrote: “With all the attention on 'virally spreading' links, we wondered, just how effective is it? What's the conversion rate? Links spread virally -- but so what? That's only one step in the process. How many people actually fill out the CPA surveys that make the money?”

Sullivan said that he had studied two major spam campaigns on Facebook involving the McDonald's “Happy Meal Horror” facade.

He found that the spam campaigns had resulted in 32,000 combined clicks and 15,000 'Likes' on the platform, but said that the total number of clicks on spam links is down from two months ago.

Sullivan added: "However, the 32,000 clicks is far less than similar spam from just two months ago when we saw several examples of viral links that yielded hundreds of thousands of clicks."